It is 5k away and a 10-minute drive. Players pile in cars, gear is thrown in the back, and rush is on to get to practice. Due to minimal turf space, Atholton High School sports teams drive not just to away games, but also to Cedar Lane Park for practices .
Three Atholton teams share time at Cedar Lane: Varsity boys’ and girls’ soccer on Mondays and JV and Varsity Field Hockey on Tuesdays. Both coaches and players have mixed emotions about this situation.
Cedric Hotopp, Atholton junior and on the boy’s Varsity soccer player stated that this new schedule started at the beginning of the latest 2024-2025 school year, “We had one Monday practice at Atholton and then we switched to Cedar lane,” Hotopp commented.
Self-transporting athletes drive themselves or have parents transport them to off-campus grounds, in this case, Cedar Lane, to attend practice since there is not enough turf space on Atholton’s grounds. To keep athletes safe, if athletes are self-transporting they have to complete a required driving waiver.
“We had a similar issue where there wasn’t enough time on the turf for everybody, so my coach at the time organized with the athletic director of transportation for us to get to Blandair Park,” said Ms. Belson, Atholton’s varsity field hockey coach.
Ms. Belson, in her 2nd year coaching varsity, said that when she was a student at Atholton she went through the same experience her sophomore year. Ms. Belson doesn’t mind going to Cedar Lane because she wants as much turf time as possible.
“It used to be that field hockey was played on Bermuda grass, but it evolved to be played on turf, ” so any chance Ms. Belson gets to play on turf, she’s satisfied.
Addison Crawford, a junior on the girl’s varsity soccer team, sees eye-to-eye with Ms. Belson. She likes it because, “We get turf time– where the ball gets to where it’s meant to be– and it’s the same type of field we play on for games so that helps us get game ready. ”
Crawford practices on Mondays from 3:15 – 5:00 pm. She says with this new change at Cedar Lane her schedule is “good and about the same as if we were practicing at Atholton because we end at the same time.” However, it has proven to be difficult and road bumps have occurred.
Ms. Belson mentioned that Tuesdays are difficult to navigate.
“It can be difficult if a student needs to meet with me on Tuesdays. I’m usually in the building for a short period of time after the school day ends, but not very long so anybody who really needs to get help with an assignment or get extra practice, Tuesdays are not the best for me.”
Cedric Hotopp is experiencing some road bumps as well, due to the new schedule disrupting his pre-game practices. “We have Tuesday games and since I can’t make practices [on the turf fields] on Mondays, I don’t have a practice before a game. For other kids it doesn’t really mess with that too much.”
Off campus practices create struggles because of the lack of ability to practice and perform. This can also can be a disruption for parents to adjust to this new schedule.
“I had a couple of parents that were concerned about whether they would be able to get their child there or not,” commented Belson. Despite the changes, Belson commented, “The parents and I were able to work something out.”
As for equipment, field hockey players either place it in Ms. Belson’s car or one of the other coaches. Sometimes the “ juniors and seniors who drive, a couple of them have been putting it in their cars to bring it to practice or game the next day,” said Belson. As for the girl’s soccer equipment “it goes back to Atholton in Coach Thompson’s car,” said Crawford.Although it is hard to tell if other schools are dealing with the situation because some schools “have more field space than Atholton does” Belson mentioned that the athletes have seen other high school field hockey teams practicing on adjacent fields. So one would assume they are running into similar issues with field space and coordinating times.
Since this new schedule was implemented athletes are making the best of these new changes. No matter where they stand with this adjustment, athletes are making improvements because they are getting turf time when and where they can.
